Bounty Hunters and Black Magic

by Kristen Banet

  “Glad we have an agreement. We ain’t trying to hurt the little witch. They want her, and we see an opportunity, that’s all.” Easton looked down at her. “What would you like to show us first?”

  She grinned. There wasn’t much in Redstone, but all of it was interesting, mostly thanks to the people who lived there.

  The rest of the morning was spent introducing the bounty hunters to everyone. They had never been in a Supe town like Redstone—not one that refused to have humans living there, anyway. Redstone and humans didn’t get along.

  “We’re a trading town, you see. We don’t have miners or anything, but we have farmers and the like. We have cheaper foods and goods than people needing to order from longer distances, so we do have some relations to the nearby human towns. They just don’t come here,” she explained after walking out of the butcher’s shop, having introduced them to the werewolf Alpha. “Shifters and wereanimals are our biggest population. Doesn’t matter what kind of shifter, but we have both types of wereanimals, the cats and the wolves. For the most part, they all get along.”

  “And you’re the only witch,” Remy pointed out. “The witch of Redstone.”

  “There’s me, the only witch,” she agreed, nodding. “There’s also Valen, but no one knows what he is. You can’t meet Tobias, he’s out of town, but he’s a Shaman. If he were born back East, he would have been a great warlock, but he’s happy with the magic he does know.”

  “The Shamans can do interesting things,” Maxwell added. “Tobias is a peaceful man, but if you ever come back after this, he’s not one you want to pick a fight with just because he seems non-violent.”

  “And no one knows what Valen is? Really?” Easton was frowning, his eyes on the saloon.

  “Nope, and those who have asked have never gotten an answer. Which is fine. Between him and the vampires in the brothel, we end up with some pretty wild nights.” She grinned. “I love this town.”

  “Sounds like a nice place,” Remy agreed. He’d stayed glued to her side the entire morning, and as lunch passed, she didn’t see that changing at any point.

  “Why don’t we go to the saloon for the afternoon? We can have a couple drinks, maybe a snack, while the sun is too high for any wandering around,” she asked, looking between the men around her. “Maxwell?”

  He groaned, but gestured towards the saloon. She’d said his name to make sure he wasn’t going to try and give her any trouble. She wasn’t in the mood to get dragged out from her nice time again.

  She led them across the street and once again entered the saloon with a saucy grin at Valen. “Valen! Have anything cold for me?”

  “For you, Addy? Always,” he answered. Before him on the bar, a glass appeared and began to fill. “I’ll let you have this one on the house since your first night out was so rudely interrupted. I see you’ve…brought the newcomers. I take it you four came to an agreement?”

  “We’ve got it handled,” Maxwell answered. “Can I get a bourbon? Easton? Remy?”

  She grabbed her drink while they got theirs from the good bartender and owner of Magic Notes. After that, they grabbed a table, all of them relaxing as a fan blew a breeze for them. It was magically operated. Again, a Valen trick she had yet to figure out. His tricks didn’t need to be redone, they just always were, perpetual. It defied the laws of magic, really, like they had an endless source of energy when they shouldn’t.

  “After this, we can have dinner and talk more serious plans at my house.” She figured the sooner they talked about the important things, the sooner she could relax about it.

  “Of course, though, you’ll need to bring the wards down if you want us to come in.”

  She stopped mid-sip of her whiskey, raising an eyebrow.

  “I don’t ward my property. It’s rude. I can’t assume everyone of a certain type is there to hurt me, demons included. I make healing potions for the sick. I can’t…” Her eyes fell on Maxwell.

  “I’ll bring the wards down,” he muttered, looking away.

  “Oh, you put them up? Smart. Good protection. I just can’t get through the Hell-Touched ward, being what I am. I know it leaves her home vulnerable to demons. I’m sure we can come to-”

  “The wards are coming down,” she said sternly.

  “I said I would bring the wards down.” Maxwell took a long swallow of his own drink, still refusing to look at her. “Also, you’re Hell-Touched?”

  “I’m a hellhound half-breed. Of course I’m Hell-Touched,” Remy explained, shrugging nonchalantly. “I figured the little witch would have told you what we are.”

  “No, I don’t give up those sorts of secrets.” It was rude as sin to tell Supes each other’s secrets, especially when someone was an unknown, hiding what they were.

  “It’s not a secret. We just don’t normally announce it.” Easton chuckled, finishing off his glass.

  “So, what are you?” the marshal asked, frowning. “Because you’ve both kept it pretty secret. Nobody has ever told anyone with the Magic Division or Society of Magic.”

  “Well, if the pretty witch didn’t tell you, I’m not.” Easton wiggled his eyebrows, something so ridiculous that she couldn’t resist a giggle at it. It was cute and charming. While Remy was rough and attached to her already, refusing to leave her side, Easton had a charm to him, a properness that was only a little raw from the West. She could see he was cunning, a little sly with it. He played games and she figured if she ever tried, she would lose.

  And if I want one, I get both.

  That thought came roaring back to her mind, making her shift somewhat uncomfortably. Oh, she didn’t need to let her mind wander off into those thoughts just yet. Thank goodness she drank a moon brew at breakfast. It would keep her from getting pregnant for the next month.

  That was, if they had the chance to find a private moment with Maxwell hanging around. She had a feeling he didn’t like her plan to break the dry spell with a couple of bounty hunters.

  “What are you thinking about?” the hellhound whispered in her ear as Easton and Maxwell launched into a conversation about keeping Supe types private and how the Society of Magic studied anything different. “I can smell it.”

  “Last night, Easton said that if I wanted…this, then I had to have…both.” She wasn’t sure how to put that without it sounding like exactly what it was. She also didn’t think anything less than honesty with the hellhound shifter was a good idea.

  “Are you okay with that?” he murmured, leaning closer, his voice so low she nearly didn’t hear him. “Smells like you are.”

  Of course I’m okay with it. What sort of woman would pass up this sort of amazing proposition they offered me? A prude, sure, but no witch would miss the chance at a new experience of this kind. Orgies are like our thing, especially during rituals. Not like one of those is going on, but still…

  “Yes.” She wasn’t going to lie to him, but she also wasn’t going to sound desperate and tell him exactly what was going through her mind either.

  “Good. Maybe we can slip away at some point.” He pulled away after that, leaving her cheeks a little warm.

  Slip away? Oh, that made it sound much more illicit than just inviting them to her bedroom. She felt much younger than her twenty-eight and widowed, like when she was barely a woman, flirting with a deputy after he’d thrown her into a cell for a drunken escapade at the saloon.

  She finished her whiskey and raised the glass over her head.

  “I got you, little witch. No worries.”

  She put the glass back on the table, letting it refill. Thank the gods for Valen, who also understood a woman’s needs.

  As the day continued, she kept drinking and letting the guys argue over the semantics of bounty hunting and its legality. Every so often, she jumped in and corrected them when it came to Redstone, but really, she was just glad Maxwell and the bounty hunters were actually getting along. Politely, if a little withdrawn, but getting along. It meant the entire affair would go well, and that
was something she needed, since it was her head on the chopping block.

  “All right, pretty little thing. Let’s go back to your place and have dinner.” Easton stood up and offered a hand. She grabbed it and let him pull her up. She had a moment of dizziness, alcohol, heat, and just sitting around being a bad combination, but she wasn’t more than a little tipsy.

  “I can make a simple stew for us. That will fill up everyone and take long enough for us to discuss…other plans.”

  “I’ll help,” Maxwell offered. “After I bring the wards down.”

  “Thank you.” She meant that. It wasn’t often that anyone helped her cook. In the last year? Not at all. Even she could begrudgingly admit to herself that she’d liked him making breakfast the day before, even if his coffee was terrible.

  The sun was nearly past the horizon when they were back at the house. All in all, the day hadn’t been so bad. Now, they just needed to get down to real business.

  10

  Easton

  Easton walked into her home, taking in everything from the cleanliness of it to the pictures on her wall. He pulled off his hat, hanging it up at the door, and elbowed Remy to make sure he did the same. Once the hellhound had done it, they moved through the large opening into the kitchen and passed her and the marshal to get into her dining room.

  He resisted the urge to touch the round ass that taunted him. It just wasn’t often enough he found a curvy woman like her in the West. Everyone was half starved or immortally ‘perfect.’ They were all skinny and bony. He could relate to Remy’s want when it came to the idea of a soft body. And he loved how feisty she was proving to be. She just didn’t care about what the men around her wanted. She was a formidable equal, it seemed, not a simpering, sweet fool. Her tenacity made him intrigued where her body made him hard. It was a devastating combination for him.

  “Do you men like rabbit? It’s my favorite stew,” she said, holding a skinned and cleaned rabbit up.

  “Do you hunt those?” he asked, curious. He could see her out there with a rifle, taking out small game. Maybe not deer, not in this area, but a rabbit or two? Yeah, he could definitely see it. It helped he could see the rifle she kept by the kitchen door. A nice, well-maintained Winchester, at that. He wondered if maybe it was once her late husband’s.

  “No. A wolf shifter, his name is Callan, brings me two every week. Stew is easy to make and eat over a few days so it’s convenient.” She handed the carcass to Maxwell, who began to butcher it. “Redstone. We take care of each other. We all have a skill for the community and it works well for us.” She eyed him. “None of us care if you want to hide, or what you really are, so long as you mean no trouble and want to be part of the community.”

  He felt something squeeze in his heart. Sounded wonderful. This witch even knew all the right things to say to him, even if she didn’t mean to. She was probably just trying to make him feel more at ease. He didn’t need her to. He liked what he’d seen of the town so far. The only problem he had with it was the Gate to Hell underneath it. That could prove troublesome for him.

  He was going to need to find ways to keep her from saying more things like that if he wanted this to be a standard work trip. I have some ideas. I’ll need to see if she’s okay with any of them. And get the damn marshal to stop giving me looks like I’m going to blow the damned town up.

  “Remy? How far out are they?” he asked, leaning back in his seat.

  “Another day, at least. They stopped an hour ago, probably for the night, but I’ll know if they draw any closer and will say something.”

  “Good. If they’re taking things slow, that means we have extra time.” Easton was relaxed about the entire thing. The Anzu Gang wasn’t a big fish in the scum pond of demon gangs. They had decent bounties on their heads, though, which was why he and Remy had been tracking them. Two hundred a head was very good money. They could disappear for a time, lie low for a while—maybe even get a house with that kind of money, somewhere to settle between jobs.

  “They could very well only be stopping for a meal,” Maxwell commented. “And I find it more likely. Their youngest brother is dead. They’re a vengeful, close bunch. They won’t take kindly to the insult of a witch banishing one of them.”

  “You’ve been following them?”

  “Yeah. They’ve been overly active the last six months, and that has my superiors and I interested. They weren’t too busy for a few years, then hit four places in as many months, which is why their bounties sky-rocketed.”

  He hadn’t known any of that. He and Remy just took posters and went hunting. The why just didn’t matter. “Good to know. So, they’ll be here by lunch tomorrow, if they’re fools, and they’ll be completely exhausted.” Easton wasn’t worried. No matter what, the demons weren’t going to take them unaware. And it still gave him the time to do what he and Remy wanted to do before this was over. Just once with the little witch would be more than enough to send them off with smiles, he figured. It was always nice to have a little side action when they had to work in a town and she seemed willing, looking for her own distraction.

  “You think of everything, don’t you?” the marshal asked, looking up to him.

  “I try,” he answered, smiling. He turned his smile on her. “Darling, what do you have for drinks here?”

  “Water.” She snapped her fingers and glasses appeared on the counter, while he felt her unique crackling magic fill the air for just a second. He raised an eyebrow. Summoning objects without an incantation. That wild magic she had. Not one witch or warlock he had met could do it. He thought it was fascinating. His abilities were catered to a single thing, or angel-related, and none of them were useful for anything mundane, or quality of life improvements.

  He watched as she filled the glasses from a pitcher and stood up to take them from her, because he didn’t want her thinking she was catering to them. She turned and he was there, holding his hands out.

  “Let me take those,” he said kindly. She handed them to him, a small smile playing over her full lips as their hands brushed together. He stared at those lips for a moment, wondering if they were as soft as they looked.

  She’s got me side-tracked from the bounty. Been awhile since that’s happened.

  It didn’t help that she had pretty blue-green eyes or thick, wavy black hair. Or the curves. Or the breasts that liked to bounce a little more than she probably wanted them to, if he knew anything about how women thought. They could bounce as much as they wanted in his mind. Actually, he was probably going to think about how they bounced for the rest of the night.

  He sat back down as quickly as possible, before the marshal saw his erection and decided to start questioning their intentions. He and Remy weren’t there just to sleep with Adalyn; it was just a nice bonus, and promised to be a good time for all of them.

  He and Remy both had a hunting problem. They set their eyes on something and that was it. They went for it. And they were agreed on this one: Adalyn Lovett was a fine woman to hunt. From the moment she walked into the saloon, they had watched her, not even knowing she was the woman they had wanted to talk to.

  “When they do arrive, what’s the plan?” she asked, stirring the stew.

  “Sit down, you’ve been up all day. I’ve got it from here. Just need to stir it?” Maxwell said softly. She nodded and went to the table, letting her own glass of water float behind her.

  “You can leave it, actually. Come sit down as well. Thank you for the help, really, Maxwell.” She waved a hand and Easton watched, still fascinated. The spoon began to stir on its own. Not a word came out of her mouth. He wondered what sort of things she could do if she needed to actually cast a spell.

  “The highest likelihood is that they will roll into town, guns blazing and call out for Adalyn.” Easton had seen it a hundred times at this point. “We just don’t give her to them. It’ll be a gunfight, so someone will need to let the town know it’s coming.”

  “Let the town know and there will be dozens
of shooters, not just us,” she murmured, sipping on her water. “Which will only incapacitate the demons, not banish them. They can’t die.”

  “Either way, they’re running into a losing fight.” He shrugged. He didn’t see this as a big deal. “We’ll need to worry about any hellfire they might summon on us. Do either of you have an answer to that?”

  “I do,” the marshal answered. “Training for it comes with my job. I can keep it from spreading during a fight and once things die down, I’ll put it out.”

  “Valen can handle hellfire as well, but he’s got some restrictions,” she offered. “He can only do his magic in the saloon.”

  “I forgot about that,” Maxwell said, chuckling. “One day, I’ll understand that man.”

  Easton filed that away. His being secretive made him curious about others. This Valen, and what he’d seen of the man so far, made him very interested. Where Adalyn could do spells without saying them, they were limited by her own power; Valen’s magic seemed limitless. He’d noticed that when their drinks refilled at the saloon, no other bottles emptied. He’d created, not summoned.

  “Really, it doesn’t sound too dangerous. A little hellfire and a lot of bullets. Oh no,” Remy said.

  “Sounds like, but hound, this is Redstone and nothing is that simple.” Adalyn grinned at the hellhound. Easton had a distinct feeling that the feisty witch liked the idea of danger. “We just need to be careful with the Gate to Hell underneath us. That could go very badly, very quickly.”

  “I don’t think they have the power to mess with it. Beelzebub had to do the magic himself when he wanted it. None of his minions or followers could.”

  “I’m not saying it’s likely, Maxwell, I’m saying we just need to keep an eye out for it.” She rolled her eyes away from the marshal, letting them land on him. Easton smiled at her. She was a charming little thing. “The stew should be ready. Bowls are over the stove.”

  “I’ll get it,” he offered, standing up.

  Maxwell had said and done the exact same thing. Oh, isn’t that interesting? Easton arched an eyebrow at the marshal, who narrowed his eyes back.